From work with the Internet, it is known that the process of downloading pages or web contents with images is frequently very time-consuming.
However, even in the case of applications which are not based on the World Wide Web, the process of displaying image data, video data etc. on the screen leads to the disadvantage that the desired image is not produced until all of the image data has finally been processed. Prior to this, the user sees nothing. This leads to the further disadvantageous effect that the user is also not informed about the current processing stage, and is therefore forced to wait for an unpredictable time period before the image is formed completely.
Particularly in the case of medical applications, it is even in some cases sensible and sufficient to terminate an image construction process prematurely, if it is already evident that the image to be formed does not satisfy the current requirements. It is then possible to save the waiting time which would have been required to construct the image completely.
If, for example in the course of a consultation, the state of a patient with regard to his lung is intended to be discussed on the basis of X-ray records, then the corresponding images are loaded from an archive. However, if it is evident while an image is being loaded that this is not, for example, the record of a lung but of a leg, then the process of constructing the image can be terminated without this leading to unnecessary waiting times.